September 30, 2005

Prof Explores Mideast Issues

By | September 30, 2005

Speaking in a small but filled classroom in Goldwin-Smith, Prof. Elias Zureik, sociology, Queen’s University, a leading scholar in Palestine Studies, addressed the need to gap the communicative space between Israelis and Palestinians in his lecture entitled “Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Issue” yesterday afternoon.

A renowned, active authority on Palestine studies, Zureik’s numerous published academic works include articles and books such as The Palestinians in Israel: A Study in Internal Colonialism, a publication that Prof. Michelle Campos, Near Eastern studies, called “very pivotal” in shaping current views on the ongoing conflict and tension between Israelis and Palestinians.

Zureik unraveled a series of explanations and argumentations as to the seriousness of the Palestinian refugee issue, as well as why the peace planning of the region depends on this issue being properly addressed. He began the speech with an acknowledgement of the delicacy of the matter: “[The Issue of Palestinian refugees] is a contentious issue, it is contentious in every sense of the word, from the title of the subject to who the refugees are, to how they came about and what is to become of them.”

He defined them as the largest single national group of refugees worldwide, making up roughly six million of the 20 million total transient populace (not counting those displaced due to natural disasters). He further explained they are a United Nations-registered group, living in and outside of refugee camps, scattered mostly throughout countries in the Middle East, and even internally within Israel itself. The two largest categories of the six million include 4.3 million who are descendants of refugees from the 1948 war with Israel and 1.3 million from the 1967 war with Israel.

A multitude of limitations define the lives of these outsiders, according to Zureik, with notable exception of those living in Jordan. Every day they face exclusions ranging anywhere from missing social and political rights, to denial of job and education access, to the distrust of their host nations. Zureik challenged his audience to see “This is not just a pie-in-the-sky issue you can pontificate over a cup of coffee.”

He described Gaza as “nothing less than a prison,” citing it as a highly overcrowded area, whose land and air space are completely policed by Israeli forces, to the point of “total strangulation” of the Palestinian people.

Also explored in the talk were hot topics such as the Palestinian right-to-return; the economic, social, and political degradation of the populace; and the failure of the 1993 Oslo Agreement to produce progress, often suggesting an unwillingness on Israel’s side to compromise or co-operate. Ultimately, however, he opened the lecture to a plane of possibilities for dialogue.

“How,” he inquired, “do you establish psychological rapport between two sides that have been fighting for one hundred years?”

Zureik outlined the four-point proposal he created during his sabbatical in 2000 as a starting point for discourse.

“The healing of past wounds,” he said, is the crux of true progress for the region. Among the four were a request for Israel to accept responsibility for displacing the Palestinians and the notion that those refugees whose return can be accommodated need not all come back at once, but rather, they could enter through time-staggered gates of various criterion such as age or family situation. In addition to his four-point proposal, Zureik entertained, at the end of the talk, the concept of a joint truth and reconciliation committee.

“Let the small people hear one another,” he told the audience. A lasting solution, he said, lies not in distributing appropriate punishments to guilty parties but in allowing the ground populace to heal and, through discourse, let the people of the region decide on the next course of action. Though he said international help from countries like the United States is a much-needed element in peace efforts, Palestinians and Israelis do not need the sanction of their governments to explore peace. He expressed disappointment in U.S. foreign policy in the region.

“The U.S position just parrots the Israeli position,” he said, considering the strong bias very damaging to progress. “The Congress are a bunch of sheep. They act as a rubber stamp to [lobbyist group] AIPAC (American Israeli Political Action Committee).”

“Professor Zureik provides a very important Palestinian voice,” Campos said after the lecture, “that students don’t usually hear.”

Voicing the increasingly oft-heard opinion that not only students, but Americans in general, are much less informed in international affairs than they ought to be, she supports lectures like this that raise the awareness of differing opinions which are not being so heavily circulated in the mass media.

She added that our roles as citizens and taxpayers are complicit in all of our government’s foreign affairs.

“People can’t keep blaming each other. What Professor Zureik was trying to show is that instead of both sides continuously voicing wrongs of the past, they should be acknowledging and addressing the issues, and figuring out ideas for how to solve them,”said Natasha Miller ’06 after hearing Zureik’s lecture.

Groups such as the Enaudi Center for International Studies, the Department of Near Eastern Studies, and the Department of Government sponsored the two-part event.

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ByOctober 3, 2005

Cornell Cinema has always been proud of its reputation of showcasing great, insightful (and sometimes overlooked) documentaries. In addition Cornell Cinema has been very successful at providing added features and guest commentaries to accompany these films. This upcoming week is no exception with Cornell Cinema not only offering two remarkably different, but stirring documentaries but also accommodating their showings with guest commentators. Winter Soldier will be followed by a discussion from various war veterans on October 4 and the October 6 showing of Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus will feature one of the musicians shown in the documentary. Winter Soldier (1972) In a simple conference room in 1971 numerous Vietnam War veterans came together to offer testimony. The conference was sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War with the hope of exposing the brutality of the conflict through the stories of multiple veterans. This film of the soldiers’ narratives was planned to cause outage against the war, but when television and film balked at producing it, it was only shown amongst anti-war circles. Only now has it seen wide distribution. Don’t let the grainy black and white footage of testimony fool you, this is one powerful film. The emotional and chilling testimony has not aged one bit in the past 30 years. Each veteran approaches his story differently; one openly cries, others retell their memories with disbelief and others show anger. The common, and most chilling, theme repeated by veteran after veteran is the change that went through each man as he fought. Each witness tells how eventually he came to view the Vietnamese not as people, but as things that had no value alive or dead. Many veterans testify how they saw no difference between Viet Cong enemies or common civilians; they were all just “Gooks.” It is only after hearing this same statement over and over again that the audience can approach an understanding of this mentality and the senseless violence that it creates. The discussion by veterans following this film will probably cast even more light on the nature of warfare and violence. Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (2005) This wonderful eclectic odyssey through the South (albeit its more eccentric parts) is a refreshing and insightful documentary. The real guide through this journey aren’t the filmmakers, in fact they seem to be tagging along just like us; instead its music. Whether it be in bars, barbershops, truck stops, or churches, music is everywhere and it is often through songs that the film makes its most significant points. It is therefore appropriate that the main narrator and guide through the film is alt-country singer Jim White. White takes us along the back roads in a beat up 1970 Chevrolet Impala with a large Jesus lawn ornament precariously hanging out of the trunk. As we travel, we are introduced to people in various places ranging from prisons to Pentecostal churches. At times, the people they meet express feelings of remorse and hopelessness, others express a deep sense of faith and a positive outlook. Of course the entire journey is helped by White’s colorful commentary. He seems to have a bizarre metaphor for nearly every aspect of Southern life. In one of his best moments he illustrates (amazingly successfully) the nature of life in a small town in the Deep South by smushing his frostee ice cream into its cone and eating it. Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus doesn’t try to pass judgement or any deep sociological experiments upon the people that we encounter. It simply is a great road trip through a often forgotten corner of America. As mentioned previously, for the Friday showing of the film musician Johnny Dowd will be present. Hopefully he will play a few of his songs that are featured in the movie’s moving and harmonious soundtrack.Archived article by Mark RiceFilm Editor

ByOctober 3, 2005

HAMILTON, N.Y. – For three quarters, the Cornell and Colgate football teams were neck and neck, tied at 20, with everything to play for in the final period. At the start of the fourth quarter, the Red had the opportunity to force the Red Raiders, who were on Cornell’s 39-yard line and faced with a third-down situation, to punt. But, the demons of last week’s game against Yale – when the Bulldogs exploited the Red’s pass defense and threw for five touchdowns – came back to haunt Cornell. On the ensuing play, Colgate quarterback Mike Saraceno found an open DeWayne Long, who ran into the end zone, giving Colgate (2-2, 0-0 Patriot) a lead it would never relinquish, as Cornell (1-2, 0-1 Ivy) fell, 34-20, on Saturday afternoon at Andy Kerr Stadium in Hamilton, N.Y. “I thought we played very hard and I thought the effort of the players was very good,” said Cornell head coach Jim Knowles ’87. “We matched them in the running game, but we didn’t match them in the passing game.” Sophomore tailback Luke Siwula again led the Cornell offense by running for 165 yards and a touchdown – being the only player in program history besides Ed Marinaro ’72, to rush for over 100 yards in his first three varsity starts. Senior quarterback Ryan Kuhn, who received a majority of the snaps in favor of freshman Nathan Ford on Saturday, went 9-of-18 for 68 yards and ran for another 68 in the loss. However, while the Red generated 252 yards on the ground, the passing game was not as successful, garnering a paltry 79 yards. “We’ve got to change up our passing game and we don’t have much in terms of vertical speed, so we have to work more on routes,” Knowles said. While Siwula, who averaged an impressive 8.2 yards per carry, had another landmark day, the Red Raiders’ balanced offense was led by freshman tailback Jordan Scott, who gained 153 yards on 42 carries, becoming the first running back ever to rush for over 100 yards during Knowles’ reign as head coach. Saraceno also had an impressive day, running for a touchdown and completing 16-of-32 passes for 224 yards, including three touchdowns passes – two of which went to receiver Kenny Parker. Similar to its first two games of the season, the Cornell offense got off to a quick start on its first two drives. After the Red defense forced a pair of three-and-outs, Kuhn twice led his team down into Colgate territory, resulting in 38 and 47-yard field goals by senior placekicker A.J. Weitsman to give Cornell an early 6-0 lead. Colgate, which was stuffed in its first three possessions, stuck with Scott and his power running game and scored on its fourth drive. On the back of Scott, Colgate drove downfield, culminating in a seven-yard touchdown reception by Parker. Throughout the game, Cornell had trouble stopping Colgate on third down, as the Red Raiders converted on 13-of-22 chances. “I think he’s an excellent back,” Knowles said. “It’s going to be hard to hold anybody [under 100 yards] if he gets 42 carries. We didn’t get off the field after the third down – and they kept moving the sticks and kept giving it to him.” As Knowles indicated during the week, Ford, who impressed last weekend against Yale with his play in the fourth quarter, got his shot and took to the field on the Red’s first series in the second period. However, Ford was not able to get anything going and Colgate was able to extend its lead to four on a 43-yard field goal on its next possession. The Red conceded its first turnover of the game on Ford’s next drive, when, attempting to run a trick play, senior wide receiver Brian Romney was intercepted by Colgate’s Chris Williams. But, Kuhn came back into the game on the Red’s next possession and, with Siwula, literally ran Cornell into the endzone. Siwula earned 20 and 19-yard gains while Kuhn ran for 13 on the series, as the Red took a 13-10 lead after senior tailback Joshua Johnston punched it in from close range with 1:05 left in the half. It seemed as if the Red would be able to take its lead back into the locker room, but a stellar 59-yard kickoff return by Geoff Bean put Colgate on the Red 38-yard line. From there, Saraceno led the Red Raiders into the end zone, capping off the short drive with an 11-yard touchdown pass to Parker with three seconds left on the clock, giving Colgate a 17-13 lead going into the half. “It’s demoralizing, but I’m not going to blame the loss on that,” Knowles said. “We got back into the game in the third quarter and it was a good sign for our team that we didn’t let [the Colgate touchdown] get to us. It hurts because we could’ve been at a positive, but now at the end of the half, we had to work out of a negative.” Undeterred, the Red stormed out of the break and scored on its next possession. Highlighted by a third-down, 23-yard catch by freshman Tom Bleymaier from Kuhn, Siwula’s one-yard run into the end zone on the 10-play drive gave Cornell the lead. Colgate tied the game up with over six minutes left in the third, hitting a 36-yard field goal to make the score 20-20. After Long’s go-ahead touchdown at the beginning of the fourth, the Red tried to bounce back by using Ford on its next series. However, Cornell was forced to punt the ball away. On the Red Raiders’ next possession, Colgate sealed the deal when it drove from the Red’s 41-yard line all the way into the Cornell end zone, capped off by a Saraceno three-yard run to give the Red Raiders an almost unassailable two touchdown lead with 6:38 left in the game. “We have to show that we’ve grown up some, that we can handle these losses and now that we’re coming home, we can take solace that we’re playing at home,” Knowles said. “We need to stick together and keep on improving.”Archived article by Brian Tsao Sun Assistant Sports Editor